Where The Stage Is The Show

Greetings Gate --- Here Comes Colonna!

The Chicago Theatre had variously 3,500 to 3,880 seats. It is still there and a supreme monument for picture houses the way they used to be. The place would open early (9 AM as here) and run late into the night. Bills were loaded with live entertainers to which a movie was often incidental. Most of patronage went to see the headliner and got impatient with screen fare they'd have to sit through two or three times in order to see the live entertainment over and over. Some would plant themselves in a seat and stay all day. Balaban and Katz owned the Chicago and other "Wonder Theatres." Both partners ended up running film companies, most notably Barney Balaban as longtime Paramount chief. Nobody knew the business like former exhibitors. The program here is Jerry Colonna ("You Crazy Or Sumpin?"), stooge-run-wild for Bob Hope and 40's definition of "zany." Colonna introduced more catchphrases into culture than we'll ever document, at least one I still use ("Greetings Gate") to nonplussed response. Whatever fat money Jerry earned was not from Bob (did anybody get into chips with Bob?), but from half-of-house terms he and other big names would exact for filling such vast caverns. Premises nut could be ruinous lest you load seats, as in all of them, overhead a monster to haunt sleep of management. A lure the stature of Colonna was essential to maintain lines at the door. They'd sure not come by this many thousands to see An Innocent Affair over three-weeks between late November 1948 and mid-December.

Continuous shows through days that continued into weeks was tax upon any artist's endurance, the unspooling feature an only opportunity to eat, lie down, tend to personal business. Coal miners had it easier than Colonna when he did stints like this, however sweet the pay-off. Hosting theatres often went with flow of audience demand. Bandman Tex Beneke, who traveled with the wildly popular Glenn Miller group,  would recall doing "six to eight shows a day" at presentation houses. "They were ... cutting out the feature movies and were just running short subjects in between our shows." Glenn Miller felt sorry for kids who sat in the theatre all day and "wouldn't leave." He'd arrange for box lunches to be distributed among them at his own expense. Fans grew to hate dull movies they had to sit through repeatedly for further dose of favorite performers. Many showmen would not take a feature on percentage basis because of split made with the live artists. For as much as the screen program mattered, even flat rates, low ones, were no bargain. We could wonder how many patrons left these Colonna shows singing praise for An Innocent Affair, or even a recall of having seen it.